Every year, Tod Caviness turns a handful of talented, sensitive poets into trained monkeys at the Fringe Poetry Vending Machine. Theatre patrons and random drunks at the Orlando Fringe give them a title and three words. This is what they give back.

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Converting Oedipus

It was a Scrabble game that started it:

Pops put down the squares for DANDLE Junior refuted

It means to pet or fondle, the old man insisted

The Hell it does, replied his seed, and just like thathe burst from his chair like a furious orcatrying to catch the sun in its teeth and dartedover to the bookshelf for a dictionary

The old man sighing so loudly, his breathcould practically be seen leavinghis mouth as steam

Soon the son's fingers flipped the pagesfamily's 1986 edition of Webster'sin a motion that could only be recognized as robotic

Countering his son's precipitous machination, the old manreached for the 1871 Oxford (Letters A - M),placed the gold-paged brick down on the tablenext to the board with a mighty thud, foundthe "DA" section and pointed down to thedefinition with all the authority of a Greek god

This is why you choose your dictionary beforehandhe told his young novice, And don't you forgetwho's king in this household.

The son sulked, returned to his chair, countered with,

LAZURITE.

by Curtis

--

From the author's own notes:

This poem was written for a customer named Vicki at the "Poetry Vending Machine" at the Orlando Fringe Festival 2008. Per request, I wrote Vicki a poem with the words "dandle," precipitous," and "machination" included within the text under her chosen title "Converting Oedipus."

Words like these and it's NOT an Anna poem? Damn. Lazurite, by the way, is a rare bluish gem and/or the most professorial word that any poet's used at the Vending Machine without being mandated to do so. Look at the big brain on Curtis.